Nothing is forever.
All living things are passing beams of light, touched, affecting and being affected, coming and going, like light rays of the sun that ripple across the ocean of time.
Each of us has own season, like rolling waves in the grass, ebbing and flowing to our own small rhythm within life’s larger cycle.
From the first stirring of Spring and its exuberance to the power of Summer coming into Autumn, timing is critical. The seasons overlap as waves pulsating to the heartbeat of life.
The going of Summer is
the coming of Autumn. It is goldenrods filling fields with bright yellow sunshine as
butterflies loving them with kisses. It is grasshoppers occasionally skirting across our
view and the musical hum of uncountable crickets.
With the passing of Summer reflections are mirrored in drops of dew that collect at leaf edge and blade tip.
Along with we who people the Earth, the plants of this Summer cried quietly for water with up
300 kilohertz of sound undetectable by human ears, as the tension that pulls water from the root to leaf increases with drought’s intensification.
Deciduous trees, bushes and grass respond to less water to begin the annual color change from green to brown. As plants sense shorter days, less sun, and cooler temperatures a layer of weak cells appear where leaf and blade attaches to the stalk of the plant. As the layer grows it eventually plugs the tubes that carry the water and mineral supply. The leaf’s chlorophyll declines and disappears leaving the afterglow of yellows, browns, oranges, reds, purples and a fantasy of multi-colored combinations.
Autumns is for long walks in woodlands, fields and meadows accented by indigo blue skies and whipped-cream clouds . The divine artist’s brush paints impressionistic rainbows of color across the land.
As we experience Appalachian Mountain Country’s Autumn it is time to sense and reflect on these happenings, gathering into our heart life’s simple treasures for Winter’s slumber and for lasting contentment within the rhythm and reason of Appalachian Mountain Country’s rhythm and seasons.
Copyright © 1988, 1999 Barbara A. Smith and John G. Hipps. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published September 14, 1988 in the Free-Press Courier, Westfield, Pennsylvania.